The Costa del Sol

I'm no longer making promises to keep up with my blog posts because quite obviously that doesn't seem to work out. So whenever I post, I post. That way I can avoid feeling guilty about these long absences from my blog that I've been taking periodically.

Anywhooooooo, as I'm sure you've seen on my Facebook by now, Mike and I are spending our holiday time in the Costa del Sol (a coastal region in the South of Spain). I have to say I have enjoyed it very much here, probably even more so than Barcelona, and I think Mike feels the same as well. I think we like it here better because you can get around easily for one. Marbella (the area we're in) and all of the Costa del Sol is a pretty huge tourist spot, so most everyone speaks English (or broken English at best). Surprisingly, as much as Barcelona is a huge tourist destination it can be challenging to get around if you don't know Spanish. After about 6 months in Barcelona, admittedly I'm not too well versed in Spanish just yet so making my way around town there proves to be difficult at times, so its been a joy not having to worry too much about whether or not people speak English or if they can understand anything you're saying or not. Aside from the English speaking, its absolutely gorgeous here. The beaches are beautiful, each little town has its own beauty and charm, everything is beautiful here. We've been down to Puerto Banus (one of the ports in Marbella) and Old Town Marbella several times and the only thing we've ever done there is just walk around. It's such a nice area that the only thing you want to do is walk around and immerse yourself in all the beauty. I mean how could you not want to walk around this place all day?

 

Besides going to Puerto Banus and Old Town Marbella I think we're going to make our way to either Tarifa or Rhonda, both places have been recommended to me to visit, and we'll just have to decide which one we want to visit. Personally I'm much more inclined to visit Tarifa because the drive is less.....stressful, so to speak. The road to Rhonda is pretty much uphill, through some mountains, and twisting and turning. I just learned how to drive a stick-shift and I'm not entirely too comfortable driving yet, I'm really not trying to go flying off of a cliff. So I think we'll stick with Tarifa. Who knows, we might just end up staying here and exploring more. Other than that, everyday we walk to the lake that's close to the townhouse we're staying at and feed the ducks, turtles, and fish. It may sound lame but I could care less. I've also spent a reasonable amount of time working on my tan! I'm no longer the color of a snowflake, and for that I am grateful. Hopefully it stays sunny here these next couple of days so I can lay out some more before we go back to Barcelona. I'll try and post a blog and more photos when we get back to Barcelona! :)

xx - Amanda!

Gelato & an Antique Market

Now that I've finished telling you about our shenanigans in Belgium I can finally tell you what we've been up to in the months since we've been back. In early January we were still located at the hotel (such a dreadful place, might I add) and the weekend after we got back from Belgium we decided to do some exploring. During our stay in the hotel we noticed that every Sunday there were tons of people walking to the left of the hotel, Mike thought they were all church goers, but I said they might all be going to a farmer's market of sorts. So we decided to see what all the hubbub was about and it turned out that I was right - as always *smirk*, well okay I wasn't 100% right. Behind the restaurant called Cafe Belgrado that was adjacent to the hotel there happened to have been an antique market that took place every Sunday, not a farmer's market. So there wasn't food being sampled or sold, whamp whamp whaaammpp, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. My touristy side kicked in and I took heaps of pictures, I'll post them below. There was a large variety of things to buy, but Mike and I busied ourselves with some old records that were being sold. I consider myself a bit of an old soul when it comes to my taste in music, so I was perusing through trying to look for some Elvis, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc., and I couldn't find either of them, which I thought was strange. I found a name that I recognized and it just so happened to have been Paul Anka, and it's like how in the world do you have a Paul Anka record but not a record from someone like Elvis? Him being as famous as he was. I don't know, I could be totally wrong, perhaps Paul Anka was this big star, but quite literally the only person I know that listened to him is my mother. She's like the only person, that I know anyway. Well, apparently Paul Anka had quite the heyday when he was younger, so I stand somewhat corrected. REGARDLESS, I still found it odd that there was no Elvis or Beatles records laying around. Its funny, I was so hung up on the records and I don't even have a record player. Anyways, after we returned from the antique market things pretty much fell in to their usual ways. A few days passed by and Mike told me that we were going to be moving from the hotel to the place that we live in now (called RESA), needless to say I was more than delighted. Our living situation is muuuuuuch better now. RESA is situated on ESADE University's campus, so it's basically a dorm. But with a twist! People like us, that don't go to the university, can also stay here. So its like half dorm/half hotel. Our room size now is about the same as the hotel's room size, but it feels more homey if that makes any sense. We have a compact kitchen and fridge, closet space, storage space, the on-campus restaurant has MUUUCCHHH better food. Like holy moly. So much better. In general I guess it may not sound like much of an upgrade, but trust me...it is. So let's speed it up a bit: My birthday passed, which wasn't all that great of a celebration for various reasons, but my birthday came and went nonetheless, Mike and I got a gym membership at the Corner 4 gym on campus, I started working out every day, Valentines' Day passed, still working out every day, February ended along with my first set of classes at Post University, March began as did my second set of classes, and would ya look at that? Here we are at present day's time! Just this past Saturday Mike, myself, and one of Mike's new teammates, Philip, went down to La Maquinista (this very nice, very large outdoor mall), and we also made a stop at Plaça Catalunya so Philip could take some pictures for his "mum" (he's from Australia), and also to get some gelato. I got the Raffaello flavor, Mike got Pitufo, and Philip got Kinder flavored gelato. Raffaello is like a coconutty-white chocolate Ferrero Rocher, Pitufo is like bubblegum, and Kinder is a chocolate brand. Mike ended up not liking his Pitufo, so I reluctantly traded with him. That Raffaello was like the bomb.com. He's lucky I love him so much, if it had been anyone else I wouldn't have been so forgiving. We hopped on the train back to Sant Cugat, arrived at the station, and walked back to RESA to have some dinner. After dinner we bade Philip adieu, headed to our room, watched Coming to America and one of Eddie Murphy's stand-up comedy shows (I think it was called Delirious? or was it Raw? It was one of those two) and sooner or later we both fell asleep. On Sunday my day consisted of doing homework, going to the gym, and doing more homework. Monday was more eventful though, I woke up around 8 am, which is the earliest I've woken up in a long time, and I got ready for the day. I had some stuff to handle at our bank here in Sant Cugat, had to buy some groceries, and then I met up with Mike after his first practice and we walked around the down-town area for a bit until he had to go back for his second practice. I walked back to RESA, did some homework, met Mike for lunch, took a wee bit of a nap, and then went to the gym. I had the owner of the gym take my BMI, and I'm not exactly pleased with the results. Mike's over here with 7% body fat, and I'm just like:

Ugh. Progress, not perfection...I suppose? Anyways, now its Tuesday morning and I've got myself boat loads of homework to do today. Joy. Here are all the pictures from that antique market and pictures of the gelato at Plaça Catalunya:

xx - Amanda!

My, My, My...It's Been a While

I feel like every single time I post a blog there's a very looooooooonngggg period of time until I post another one. I make no excuses. Blogging kind of took a backseat in regards to my priorities once my classes at Post University started back in January. However, now that my first set of classes is over with and I know how the classes are and how they work I will try my very hardest to stay on track with my blog posts. I do like the degree program I'm in at Post though, for a degree program that's completely online the professors are really thorough and they engage the students. I was pleasantly surprised by that. On another note, I realize that my last blog post was about our time spent in Belgium. Since it's been close to 2 months from the time that I posted that blog I don't think anyone is all too interested in that anymore. However, I'll sum it up for ya. Basically after NYE, when we went ice skating and I tried several different flavors of a shot called 'Jenevers'. I tried the apple/kiwi flavor, the chocolate flavor, and the cactus flavor. Surprisingly the cactus flavor was really sweet, it was my favorite of the 3. I'm not entirely sure what kind of alcohol the Jenever shots are, perhaps they're kind of like schnapps? Either way, my dad said they were really strong. I assure you, they were not. Maybe if you have like 15 of them, then you'd start to feel a little something, but 3 was nothing. Okay so anyways, we watched the NYE fireworks and for the rest of our time spent in Belgium we basically just walked around Turnhout and tried to explore the area, went to eat at my uncle's restaurant every now and then, and before we knew it our time to fly back to Spain had arrived. Taking the train to the Brussels airport was quite the experience to be had. We had to walk maybe like 20 minutes to get to the train station, then when we got there and went inside there weren't any clear signs saying which train to take, so I asked the man that worked there, we bought the tickets, and waited outside for the train. Mind you it was maybe like 30 degrees Fahrenheit. We could have waited inside, but we didn't want there to be any chance of us missing the train, so we sat and waited. The train arrived, we boarded, and we were off to Mechelen where we had to change trains. When we got to Mechelen the train attendant advised us not to change trains just yet, so we didn't. I forget his name now, but he was a very nice man. We told him where we were from and he said he would love to take his son to Vegas someday. So anyways we get to the station that the man advised us to change trains at and told us we had to get to Platform 3 and we had 8 minutes until that train left. This is where you really had to be with us to understand why I'm laughing so hard right now just thinking about it, but Mike and I looked like blithering idiots to say the least. We were on Platform 12, we wasted maybe 5 minutes walking up and down Platform 12 trying to figure out where in the hell Platform 3 was, finally we asked someone. The man told us we had to go down some stairs, walk down the pathway, go up the stairs for platform and that was where our train would be. We had about 1 minute and a half to haul our luggage down 3 flights of stairs, down a pathway, and up 3 flights of stairs. I didn't have much to carry besides a carry-on suitcase and a backpack, so needless to say I took flight going down those stairs, I mean I came just barreling down those stairs. Mike, being the gentleman, he was carrying all the heavy stuff and it was really just hilarious seeing him try to rush down stairs with a giant suitcase, duffel bag, and a backpack. I was telling him to hurry up, but I couldn't help but laugh. Once Mike made it down, we both took off down the pathway towards the Platform 3 stairs, ahhhh I can only imagine what we looked like sprinting down that hallway. We got to the stairs and I swear I have never went up 3 flights of stairs so fast in my entire life. I got to the top and I was half-yelling half-laughing, telling Mike to hurry up.When I turned to look at the train, I saw it leaving. Mike got to the top and I said, "I think we just missed it." Mike said, "No." That's all he said. A couple seconds later we realized the train that left was a different train, and the train we needed was arriving shortly. So after that realization, Mike and I could not help but laugh hysterically. From there it all became quite easy, the train arrived, we boarded, we arrived at the Brussels airport station, checked in to our flight, boarded our plane, and arrived back in Spain around 11 pm. I can't wait to go to Belgium in the Summer during the carnival season they have in August. A lot of games to play, a lot of drinks, and A LOT of deliciously fattening food. Sounds like a good time to me.

 xx - Amanda!

Some Time in Belgium

I know what you're thinking, "Jeez it's been a while since she's posted anything." Indeed it has. After much time away and an extended period of major writer's block, I'm happy to inform anyone who follows my blog that my writer's block has dissolved and I actually have stuff to talk about now! Exciting, isn't it? (There was just a tiny hint of sarcasm in that.)

Hmmm, where to begin?! Ah yes, Belgium.
Let me just start with the day of our flight to Belgium. Our flight was to leave on December 28, 2014 at 7:10 am, so Mike's coach offered to drop us at the airport and said he would be at the hotel to pick us up at 4:45 am. Anyone who knows me knows that I am NOT a morning person...at all, so you can only imagine my despair when I heard that. The night before I couldn't even get to sleep until 2 am, so I only had like 2 hours of sleep before I had to wake up and get ready. Alas, I put on a happy face, got ready, made sure everything was packed, and Mike and I headed downstairs to Mike's coach's car (what a mouthful Mike's coach's car is). We arrived at the airport around 5:45 am, checked in, and started to walk towards a gate. I wasn't a happy camper because I made the mistake of wearing heeled booties that were not broken in yet, so by the time we finally got to our gate I had a giant blister on my left heel. Let me tell you, finding the gate was a whole other story as well. The woman at the check-in desk didn't tell us our gate, so naturally we just looked at our tickets to see which gate it was. Totally normal thing to do, I assume most people do that. However our tickets weren't all that legible. All the words and numbers were mushed together, it all looked like gibberish, and the only thing that stood out clearly was A-22. So without thinking I assumed that was the gate...it wasn't. We walked all over the A wing only to find out that our gate was really C-55 and A-22 was my seat assignment. So on top of feeling like a complete and utter dumbass, my left bootie was digging into my heel more and more with every step I took. I mean, it was a great time. It really, truly was (Giant amounts of sarcasm in that one). By the time we sat down by our gate I had already received 2 different notifications from Google that our plane was delayed first by 30 minutes, then 45 minutes. Then our gate number changed. So as we're walking up to our new gate number we see a line of people waiting to board, and we look at the screen and it says that its our flight boarding. We were really confused. My phone said our flight was delayed, but the screens said our flight was on time and people were waiting in line to board. We just followed the crowd and got in line, after about 10 minutes in line a woman announced that it would be another 20 minutes until we could board, so Mike and I went to sit down. So 20 minutes goes by and now we're back in line to board, we board the plane, find our seats, put our stuff in the overhead bins, sit down, and wait for everyone else to be seated. After everyone is seated the pilot announces that we won't be taking off for another 30 minutes. At this point I didn't even care anymore, I just wanted to take my boots off. I was feverishly trying to take them off without elbowing the lady next to me. The second my booties came off I was overwhelmingly happy and grief stricken at the same time because I knew trying to put those suckers back on was not going to be a good time. The plane finally took off and for the first time in forever I actually was able to sleep on a plane. I found a nice comfy place on Mike's shoulder to rest my head. He told me that I drooled on him, I don't believe him for a second. I don't drool. He drools. I do not. Before I knew it the plane was descending and I had to put those godforsaken boots back on, which as I predicted was not fun at all. The plane landed, we got off, went to baggage claim and the first thing I did was sit down, open my suitcase, and replace my booties with my good ol' nice comfy vans...vans that I know won't betray my feet and give me blisters. We found my Uncle Tom waiting for us by the arrivals exit, I felt really bad because he was waiting for us at the airport for a long time, but I was really happy to see him. We sat down, had some drinks, talked for a bit, then headed to his car, and started driving from Brussels to Turnhout. When we got to Turnhout my uncle took us to eat at his restaurant D'Vine and as always, the food was exquisite. I had the Videe which is sort of like a pot pie, and Mike had the D'Vine Burger. Needless to say any other food besides the hotel food we've been eating since we've been in Spain would have sufficed, but Mike and I were so pleased with what we got at D'Vine. I mean like we literally were entirely too happy, when Mike took a bite of his burger his face lit up like a little kid's would on Christmas morning. It was hilarious. After we were done eating, we talked for a bit more, and then my uncle drove us to my dad's apartment. We didn't really do anything after we got to the apartment. We unpacked some of our things and after that I'm pretty sure both of us took a nap, because lord knows we both needed one! When we woke up we were both stricken with hunger, so we walked down the street to the corner frituur and got some food. When we got back to the apartment we set up our Apple TV, put on that Nonstop movie with Liam Neeson, and after we decided to call it a night.

I'll continue on with our week in Belgium in another post, because at this rate if I keep writing this post is going to be extremely looooooong. So until next post.

xx - Amanda!